Nowhere near positive enough June 24, 2009

Hang on, where were we? There were several issues and questions and sucharama that commentators presented me with over the past few weeks. I meant to talk about them (the issues, that is. Not the commentators. Hi, guys! Talking about you! Not really!).

The National Health Service – A couple of dear darling commentators have wantd to know why I, May, don’t do this or take that drug or what-have-you. I’ll tell you why. It’s because I’m being treated by the NHS is why. They take a very dim view of people buying their own medication and throwing it into the mix, especially without or against their advice. They have been known to refuse people free treatment for that kind of stunt. And, before you protest, by and large, I think they are right to. I am not a gynaecological consultant (or RE, as the trans-Atlantic cousins call them). I do not know what more or mixed drugs would do to Satsuma. I have PCOS, I have just over half the regulation number of ovaries. I am a ‘hyperstimulation candidate’ ipso facto. I get migraines. I have some (mild) allergies. I do not wish to fuck with either my health or my continuing free medical treatment. It may not be stellar medical treatment, but it’s FREE. Well, not technically free, as I am a tax payer, but free at point of need.

IVF – In my particular trust (and GOD does it BUG THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME that each trust sets its own rules about this – NHS FAIL), I can have two IVF cycles, and the money for them has been put aside, as long as I have a BMI of 30 or under when I start treatment. If, however, I have private infertility treatment beforehand, I forfeit my free cycles. This is why I am eating salad, exercising, cursing like a navvy, and not investigating private clinics just yet. Even though I do have a bit of money saved up.

Clomid – To do another Clomid cycle or not to do another Clomid cycle: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the ute to suffer The prods and pokings of outrageous ultrasounds, Or to close mouths against that pill of troubles, And by refusing end them? Will have to get back to you on that.

Injectables – I have not been offered injectables. Miss Consultant, and the IVF consultant, both think IVF is the next step, really, and are not prepared to waste more tax-payer’s money on shilly-shallying about. I think Miss Consultant is more concerned than she is prepared to admit about the state of the One and Only Fallopian Tube. Also, I am 34. I am running out of time. If I was 24, hell, yes, as many ’see what you can do in your own bed’ cycles as I liked.

IUI – See above. The NHS thinks I am too old and ought to be getting the hell on with IVF, as soon as I can whittle my flabby arse down for it. This is cheaper for them, as they don’t think IUIs and injectables will work, so why waste money on them? And I can’t go and do them privately, see above above. Hmm. This all sucks a bit, doesn’t it?

Metformin – The NHS does not think metformin that good a treatment for PCOS, unless you actually HAVE developed Type II Diabetes. There’s some research somewhere that showed ovulation rates on met and clomid were actually worse than on clomid alone, go figure. Several doctors and consultants now have lectured me on the subject, the consensus being that if you lose weight on met, you will put it all back on in seconds when you come off met, and you will come off it to do IVF (they don’t care for medication variables in Blighty, do they?), so there’s no point. And your body, allegedly, ‘forgets’ how to regulate its own insulin while you’re on met, and so if you do come off it it’s harder than ever to keep the weight off, and more likely than ever that your pancreas will emigrate. Apparantly. And all the benefits of met can be reaped in more sustainable form by the whole eat-the-fucking-salad, do-the-fucking-exercise thing, apparantly. I don’t know. I hear so many State-side stories of met being vunderbar and fantabulous and miraculous. And diarrhoea-inducingly vile. I am currently actually losing weight without met, so am inclined to keep on avoiding it until and unless the weight-loss goes tits-up for reasons OTHER than Ben and Jerrys. I hate the idea of having to be on strong medication for life, and I hate the idea of screwing further with my already screwed metabolism.

Counselling – H thinks this is going well. We are having fewer and fewer appointments, with longer gaps between them, like giving up cigarettes. I feel frustrated with it. H will not bring his issues up in the sessions, and when the issue concerns H, or is to do with H’s behaviour, I feel disloyal bringing it up myself. Also, I am getting fed up with the constant focus on how to create situations in which H feels comfortable sharing his feelings etc. Childish desire to scream ‘But what about meeeeeeeee?’ recrudesces at these junctures. On the other hand, H is sharing his feelings a lot more, and instead of getting defensive and sulky when I challenge him on his avoidance thing, he is far more likely to take it on the chin and try to have a proper talk about whateverthehellitis. So. Counselling. It’s working for H. It’s working for our relationship. I am a special flower who needs extra cookies. Also, is it normal to feel you can’t share certain issues with your counsellor out of sheer embarrassment?

Acupuncture – H has found an acupuncturist specialising in infertility. I now have to call and book an initial consultation. I am a sceptical, atheistical, anti-hippy-crap person. And yet I think this is a good idea. Not necessarily because I think acupuncture works, even, though I have seen interesting studies about it, and anyway, I like the placebo effect. The NHS could do with a bit more placebo effect itself. But, see above, strong desire to be centre of attention, issues regarding, etc., thank you. Also, it’s (allegedly) good for migraines – and I am getting really really sick of them – insomnia, and general teeth-gritting refusal to relax the hell already. Not that relaxing gets a girl pregnant. Oh no. Ovulating does that.

The Size of My Arse -Working on it. Have now got to weirdly upsetting stage in which I can comfortably get into trousers that two months ago I could not do up, and last month I squeezed out over the top of like too much rising dough in a very small bread-tin, but haven’t lost a single ounce for two weeks now. Horrible fanasies of going back to IVF clinic looking trim as anything, clambering onto scales, and being thrown back out again because my bones have turned to lead and they won’t believe it’s lead and not lard despite the smaller trousers.

Satsuma – is thinking about it. Also, EWCM has reappeared. Assume Clomid Fail has worn off, leaving me with standard mind-fuck PCOS fail to be getting on with.

Work/Life balance – Gone to pot.

The best I can do right now May 11, 2009

Item – And this is where I was this time last year.

Damn, eh?

Which is pretty much what I said to C the counsellor this evening.

Item – It’s been a strange day. H had a job interview for the job he’s been doing pro tem while they interviewed for a new member of staff to do the job that H is, like I said, doing already thank you. They told him later they couldn’t give any feedback on his interview, because it was absolutely perfect. Oh, and would he like the job? So hurrah! We are happy! Go H! And so on!

Item – And then we went for our counselling session and it was all ‘ohh, we’re happy – ohh, we’re destroyificated with anxst and gloom – hurrah, we’re going on holiday – gah, I want to bang my head on the wall for a bit – sob sob, dead baby dreams – wahey, progress from H on sharing feelings – bah, my boss is driving me nuts – arse, but everything is driving me nuts – sob giggle yay!’

Item – I’m knackered. You try being anxst-ridden and grief-stricken and delighted and ever-so-proud of your husband not only on the same day but in the same sentence.

Item – I think a lot of the anxst and bad dreams are to do with sheer, naked, self-widdling terror that I will never get pregnant again (don’t try to talk me out of it. I won’t be talked). It’s reached the point where I flinch when people mention adoption, fostering, surrogacy, donor eggs, and leaving all one’s money to one’s nieces. (By ‘flinch’, keep in mind I am normally ‘flinching’ out of the office, down the stairs, across the street and into the coffee shop. I’m going to get caffeine poisoning).

Item – On Saturday, we met up with some friends for a Nice Day Out. Which it was, I hasten to add, before The Bitching, Oy Vey It Commenceth. I had a fabulous day. My friends are a very special bunch of very kind, sweet, funny, loving people, and I would (and did) pay good money just to sit in the sun with them and talk drivel for hours. And I’m not just saying that because a couple of them read this (hi!). And now I can bitch. Well, whine self-pityingly, really. One of the group’s second child was born only a couple of weeks before Pikaia’s unfulfilled due date. My God, I could have had a baby strapped to my front too. I really could have. I should have. That size. Well, maybe not that size, as she seems to be breeding prop forwards, but still. And I have (privately, silently) had issues about her tendency to go on about how she doesn’t feel like a ‘Real Woman’ ™ because she had a caesarian for the first and some minor issues breastfeeding. Constant refrain in own head: ‘What does that make me then? A fucking replicant? Also, I’ve been cut open twice already, like I’d give a fuck if they did it again in exchange for a healthy baby.’ Why I have such issues (privately, silently) with someone I actually like, and in any case don’t meet face-to-face very often at all, is beyond me. I think it’s probably unfortunate that her pregnancies coincided with a) me realising I was as sterile as a bleached petri-dish and also bleeding to death (or at least, to very, very, very, very pale indeed) and b) Pikaia, or, what should have been Pikaia. I think I am projecting, or possibly doing transference, or both. Can you do both?

Item – Anyway. I have started on the Provera. Clomid cycle 5, the One With The Added Ovary And Still No Dice, is over. Thank fuck.

Will have been going to get back to you about that… April 28, 2009

I need to tell you about the party at Everyday Stranger’s. You’ll have to put up with the information that We Seriously Partied. And I love everyone.

I also need to tell you about that insubordinate trollop Satsuma and her side-kick Kumquat pulling the old ‘we ovulated! No we didn’t! I can’t believe you fell for that!’ trick again.

And Monday night H and I went to see the Counsellor again and I spent the whole hour and more than the hour crying and trying not to shout at H, while H sunk lower and lower into his chair and got increasingly monosyllabic. That was fun.

Also, I am being buried alive in a pyramid of books and cardboard boxes at work. One day my colleagues will return from their holidays and dig me out. Or perhaps they already have, but I can’t tell because I am buried in my pyramid, and they will leave me in there forever because it keeps me quiet.

I’ll try this blogging thing again as soon as I can. Send a St Bernard with coffee.

You just keep me hanging on April 6, 2009

Item: No, I have not ovulated yet. I told you ‘in the next 48 hours’ was optimistic. It once took a 19 mm follicle a further three days to pop. I ripen slowly, and this one was only 13 mm on Friday, so it could take, oh, I don’t know, a week?

Item: But H and I are at it like knives practically daily. Aren’t we good.

Item: We are making some progress on the counselling thing. We had a good session today, and felt all Achieve! Yes we can! And C got H to admit he was in denial, oh so very much so, Swimming With Crocodiles style, which I am sorry to say made me laugh and laugh (but quietly, to myself, heh heh heh, not BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!, because I was properly brought up). And we discussed just how nuts H’s side of the family is (very. Lots. Very very). It makes a nice change, not to be labelled the starkers bananas one in the relationship. It’s also good to understand H is a bit weird about his things what he is weird about because he and his family are starkers bananas, and not because H is on an I Shall Not Get It bender just to wind me up.

Item: Nevertheless, I am the Anxiety Queen at the moment. I am not sleeping. I am chewing my nails to the bleedening. I am screwing things up at work. Fun, huh? I was musing, today, for the prospect of seeing C makes me muse, on the anxiety thing, which has haunted me since I was a kid. It took me years and years to realise what I was feeling was, in fact, common or garden anxiety. When I feel it, it manifests itself as a kind of free-floating sense of shame and self-disgust, and it hunts about for something to attach itself to – ah yes! I buggered something up at work! Urgh. Shudder. The fact I spotted the embuggerment and gave up part of my lunch-hour to debugger it doesn’t get a foothold. It’s… wrong. I am wrong. I am wrongness personified. I spent from age about 8 to 28 feeling like this. Wrong. Sick. Bad. And do you know? It’s anxiety. It’s purely triggered by anxiety. I am not wrong, sick, bad. Not really. I’m actually quite cute. But as soon as something worries me, I assume the Mea Culpa Mantle with heart-breaking rapidity. Whyever the fuck do I do that? What the hell did my parents do to me? Why can’t I pinpoint it exactly?

Item: Anyway, this post has become very intense and gloomy all of a sudden. Shall we cheer the fuck up? Yes, let’s.

Item: Easter is to be spent in the bosom of the In-Laws. I’m not sure that is cheering me the fuck up. Four nights at the In-Laws, on the World’s Most Uncomfortable And Rickety Bed. Please God Satsuma will have popped by then. The idea of doing the Conception Shagathon on that bloody spare bed in the living-room with H’s parents right overhead is, oh well of course, making me anxious.

Item: Oh, yes, H said he could quite clearly see a definite surge in my anxiety levels just before ovulation. He thinks it’s hormonal, therefore. He has, however, carefully explained that that doesn’t mean the things I am anxious about don’t exist, or that my anxiety is somehow not valid. Just that the hormones aggravate it. I find this slightly embarrassing.

Item: I thought we’d agreed to cheer the fuck up?

Item: Cherry blossom. We shall think about cherry blossom. The trees in the local park are pink, and the one in the park near work is white. They are astonishingly lovely. There. That’s better.

Fat March 29, 2009

While we wait for anything at all to happen within the recesses of my person, I thought I had better write that post I’d been carefully putting off, about the size of my arse. A couple of weeks ago, I made notes and everything. So. But because I am incapable of organising my thoughts into anything cohesive, I have made no improvement on the notes and shall present them in all their bullet-pointed glory. With rambling addenda. Of course!

• I find talking about my weight boring and embarrassing. Very very boring, and very very embarrassing. If I am going to diet and exercise, I shall do so quite quietly, and absolutely avoid any and all advice about exercise plans, good and bad foods, and vitamin supplements. I certainly hate getting into discussions with people about diets and exercise, most particularly when the other person snivelling about their squashiness weighs a good two stone less than I do. In fact, all you people out there who like to discuss your fat arse at length in the office canteen, etc., for the love of God, look at your conversational partner. Is she fatter than you? Yes? Then SHUT THE FUCK UP. Save it for blogging, where those who can’t take it can escape and those who can will actually be interested. Thank you.
• Context: I am the only Fatty in a Skinny family. A Skinny family who, bless them and all their tormenting little ways, have an infuriating habit of ’suggesting’ diets and exercise regimes (all involving seaweed, brown rice, and extreme mortification of the flesh), while feeding me chocolate biscuits and second helpings. And then we have ridiculous coversations along the line of: ‘Well, have you tried eating only raw food? It’s so detoxing and healthy, and then if you do yoga every day and avoid yeast it’ll be so good for you, have some more roast potatoes, what do you mean, you don’t want more potatoes? They’re good! And it’s silly to leave only a teeny bit. And then we can have chocolate hobnobs for tea – oh, you and your silly fancies, not liking biscuits, have one, go on, and have you read this book on the 1000-calorie-a-day diet? Do you eat too much bread? I bet you eat too much bread.’
• I think they like having a token Fatty around. You can’t feel properly Skinny-smug without a Fatty to patronise. I am perfectly aware most slim people do not go around sneering at fat people, by the way. My family are not most people. My family are a bunch of neurotic, self-obsessed, competitive, rivalrous, snobbish, judgemental and low-self-esteem-afflicted loud-mouths. Feel that your marriage is cracking up? Hey, at least you’re not as fat as May! Unable to keep a job? But you’re skinnier than May! Children driving you batshit? Hey, May is twice your size, go and stand next to her for an hour, you’ll feel marvellous!
• Also, oh, the raging irony of having a biscuit-obsessed 10 stone mother, whereas I hate biscuits and weigh 14 stone 7. Rage, rage.
• It has taken me years to get to a place where I have stopped equating my wobbly tummy and over-ripe thighs with sheer hideousness, where I am comfortable in my skin, where I do not automatically equate slimness with beauty and moral worth. I do not want to go back to a place where food is the enemy and I am the enemy too for eating it.
• When I was a teenager, I was very thin. Yes, I was. Ribs. Hands like bird-claws. I did it by Not Eating. I was a bit depressed, you see. I also had  a side-line in self-harming. But hey! I was thin!
• And I was also very ill. I had glandular fever, badly, which turned into post-viral fatigue syndrome just in time for A-levels, and I had a giant ovarian cyst that was slowly twisting my left ovary into a pretzel and caused me constant pain, deeply whacked out cycles, outbreaks of haemorrhage and a fetching moustache. I had to have emergency surgery in the end, because I collapsed shrieking in agony, my ovary beginning to actually tear itself in half. I now have a scar that runs from hip to hip along my knicker line. The cyst was 18 cm across when they removed it (and the ovary. And most of the fallopian tube, which had also got tangled up in the action).
• I now, neurotically, associate being thin with, perhaps, looking good and being virtuous, but also with pain, depression, hospitals, scars, being neglected by the medical establishment (‘Oh, all teenage girls get painful irregular periods! There’s nothing wrong with you! Have some Femin.ax!’). I am scared of being thin.
• But being fat is making me barren. And is preventing me from doing IVF. And, frankly, makes wearing skirts in the summer uncomfortably rubby in the thigh area.
• So I must diet and exercise.
• Being fat is a big fertility issue, and my fertility, lack of, is a big fat issue, so I am getting it off my chest (Hah hah. Bwahahahah, in fact). I am only venting about the issue and why I find it difficult and saddening. Only venting.
• Therefore I’d like everyone to seriously resist the temptation to give advice and tips. Please. Be considerate. Remember that you don’t actually know that much about my eating habits and exercise regimes. Remember that ‘just relax’ and ‘have you tried cough medicine/ pineapple/ propping your hips up/ a vacation?’ are craptastic things to say to an infertile person. Well, ‘have you tried the South Beach Diet/ smaller plates/ larger plates/ Pilates/ colonic irrigation?’ are craptastic things to say to a fat person.

She said crossly March 26, 2009

Item – I’d comment more, but the Blogosphere has ejected me. Ejected me, I tell you! I visit some delightful and meaningful blog or other, spend hours, well, minutes typing the cutest, coolest, funniest comments ever, and I hit ‘post’ and the blog goes — nah. I’m looking at you, mu, typepad, blogspot. I hate you all. I am not spam. I am offended.

Item – I am falling back into No Sleep Land. I entirely blame the counselling. Oh yes, we’re still going to that, every fortnight. We spent the last session discussing the way we discuss purchases and money, and I spent the entire hour wanting to hurl myself through the window, screaming ‘Shut up about the fucking speakers! I refuse to talk about how I talk about the fucking new speakers! I do not care how we decide what fucking speakers we buy!’ And yet the conversation ground relentlessly on, me being polite and cooperative and wondering why H had his head so far up his arse – this is the INFERTILITY counsellor, not sodding John Lewis, so why in the name of Christ aren’t we talking about Clomid 5, or the fact I’m to fat to do IVF, or bloody buggering Mothering Sunday, for that matter?

Item – Went home after that and lost my temper good and proper. With myself, as much as anyone. But also with H, because he was there. And, as it turned out, also slightly bewildered at how the conversation ran so relentlessly on and unstoppably on about the, ohhh, damn it, speakers. Wish I had flung myself about and said sweary-words now. Rather wonder why on earth I want the counsellor to think I am a nice sensible calm and normal woman. I’m paying her £65 an hour because I’m not.

Item – I am seriously abusing the italics button in this post, aren’t I?

Item – I have an appointment with Nice Lady Wand Monkey on Monday, in which we look through the round window and see what Satsuma is doing. Please let the little slacker be cheerfully growing a fat juicy follicle. Please. Please.

Item – I was accosted by Alpha Line Manager yesterday afternoon, wanting to know what the hospital appointment was for – was it for migraines? Alpha seems to have got hold of the impression somewhere that one migraine every four to twelve weeks is somehow serious, whereas any fule kno that real migraine sufferers get them weekly, or even daily, and no neurologist is going to waste his or her precious time on me unless I start having convulsions or grow antlers. Anyway, I bravely answered that I was seeking *ahem* ‘treatment’, what with the ghastly miscarriage thing last year. Alpha replied that it all sounded very stressful and she hoped they would be kind and helpful. I said thank you, and went away feeling pleased with Alpha, for saying exactly the right thing. So this was good.

Item – I am a chilly mortal with pale blue feet, most of the time. For the past week, every few hours I suddenly get terribly hot and pink and sweaty and tear my sweaters off. Whatever I am doing. I could be sitting by an open window thinking crikey, it’s draughty, I’ll put my cardigan on, and wooosh, hotness. FFS. I was only taking 50 mg of Clomid and I have never had hot flushes on that dose before. Harrumph.

This being what May thought of counselling. March 4, 2009

[H's version is here.]

The first visit to the counsellor, we talked about, well, the Story So Far (see ‘About‘ page, for those of you singing along), and when I got to Pikaia I bawled for about 30 minutes non-stop, frantic with embarrassment the entire time. All the Counsellor had to do, being a counsellor, and Wise in the Ways of the Wayward Psyche, was point out to me that I had been through a lot (gulp) and naturally I would still be grieving (gulp, sniff), and nobody could expect me to be over it already (wahhhhhhhhhhh!).

We soldiered on anyway, me blowing my nose on increasingly teeny dry patches of the increasingly soggy tissue. And we discussed the following:

H compartmentalises. Apparently, most men do this. Well, frankly, if I had wanted to marry most men I would have. And it irks me very much to realises that this is a good way of coping, in that H is not the one bawling his freaking eyes out in a complete stranger’s front room. Which is something I don’t really want to be doing. Except I am paying to do it. Where were we? I was talking about H. Who compartmentalises, whatever the fuck that means – well, what it does mean is that H can sit in a complete stranger’s front room and talk about miscarriage without bawling his eyes out.

We’ve discussed my somewhat unimpressed reaction to the ‘being strong for you’ theory briefly on this blog. We have not discussed it with the Counsellor (let’s call her C. H is calling her C and I am all about the consistency here) but I think we should. For either I am egregiously wrong, and men are Supposed to Be Strong by ignoring every single person in the Universe’s feelings including their own, and most people really do find it helpful to share a home with an automaton, or I am egregiously right, and H is being a moral coward and dressing it up as ’staying strong’ as that sounds so much nicer than ‘wimping out’.  Christ, I sound like a bitch. Heigh ho.

Anyway, H can too bawl. He cried when he saw I had written Pikaia’s name out in full with his surname on her little boat.

While we’re on the subject, I was an idiot to think that the Thing With The Paper Boats, no matter how beautiful it was, would somehow be, or ought to be, the end of the grieving process, but I did. C suggested we get something permanent we could both remember Pikaia by, and H leapt at the idea – and has since been talking enthusiastically about finding an ornament that would be just right (for example, not a rock, no matter how pretty the semi-precious stones in the Natural History Museum shop are. And something small enough to hold). So when I say leapt, I also mean took a firm grip on, and Means It.

And I sat there with my mouth hanging open. I had felt, I had, in fact, put myself, under pressure to Get The Fuck Over It Already, especially after the due date. None of it was coming from H, after all, despite his Strong Silence and ability to say ‘miscarriage’ without tearing up. He wanted, badly wanted, to keep hold of Pikaia, and remember her too, and I had not known this. I simply had not known this. (Oh, bugger, I’m starting to cry again. Excuse me one moment).

I did not cry the second time we visited the Counsellor. Go me! I thought, as I gulped water frantically and thought about daffodils. So brave! Doing my damndest not to cry again, and trying to, be, like, all cool and humorous about it, and like, totally not fazed, dude.

I am an Idiot.

This time, we discussed my issues with telling work, and not wanting work persons to know a damn thing about it, which will be unavoidable if I’m forever sloping off to be prodded and stuck, and also being a leeeetle skeeved at the idea of cheerfully lying my head off at work under the banner of None Of Their Fucking Business. I did not say ‘fuck’ in C’s office. I am well-brought-up. C suggested ways in which H could help me come up with pre-planned excuses for the nosy bastids, and a calm professional way to keep my line managers informed, as I am freaking just a tad out about both. H seemed to like this idea. I was bewildered by H liking this idea. H wants to help? Really? But, but, he’s been Being Strong, which as we know involves Not Saying Anything.

And then we naturally had to discuss why I hated the very idea of telling work that I needed the time off, which lead to a discussion of my feelings of guilt and shame over being ill or needy (yeah yeah yeah, I’m warped by careless parenting, I know), which lead to a (mercifully brief) discussion of my slightly fucked up relationship with my mother, she who spent my childhood telling me off for being a hypochondriac and faking illness to get out of things and making her life difficult and so on, during which I badly wanted to curl up into a pretzel and roll unobtrusively out of the room and into the dark deserted street. Yes, I know that sounds fucked up. It is fucked up. I am fucked up.

By this time I was getting slightly twitchy that we were spending the entire hour talking about me mememememe ME. H had disclaimed all responsibility for the evening as he’d had a shite day at work and couldn’t think of a single thing to say, but I still felt I was hogging the limelight rather.

And then we discussed anger, in that I don’t seem to be expressing any. I am quite sure H would have had quite a lot to say on that score if he hadn’t been being so polite and H-ish, so I did hasten to mention I snapped at him. So we had to discuss why I feel such a strong need to be scrupulously fair and consider all sides to all stories. At this point H butted in and proved he has absolutely been listening all these years and volunteered that it was to do with my father. So I had to explain that I had been my Daddy’s favourite for years, and how utterly shitty this had been for my sister Trouble, and how it had screwed our relationship up, and there I went, empathising with Trouble and explaining it all from her point of view, which rather made H’s point.

The anger thing is going to be a Big Issue. In that I am so angry about the infertility and loss thing that I think I could chew through a concrete wall, but cannot express it. In that H is extremely uncomfortable with anger, even when it’s not being expressed at him. In that there are rages within me I daren’t tell him about, in case he despises me for them. I think I shall force H to talk about that next time.

This being what H thought of counselling. March 4, 2009

[May's version is here. May also promises she did not even read H's version before she posted it.]

So, I was surprised to discover that it has nothing to do with selling
couns… sorry, just had to get that out of my system first.

Session 1:
We arrived early and left late – felt rather guilty about stretching
the 50 minutes into nearly an hour. I think I remember the issues
raised, but the order may be a little muddled, so may not tie in
exactly with May’s account (defence in early, you’ll notice). However,
overall this was pretty much as I expected a first session to go.
Mainly a getting to know you and what the major issues are session and
we had quite a lot of that to get through over and above the usually
job/background stuff. I think May found it somewhat cathartic to
unburden a lifetime of bad/chaotic medical treatment, historic and
ongoing, and the counsellor (referred to as C from herein) was
appropriately sympathetic and reassuring that grief is/can be a be a
long process and May needn’t be over it. Do we have anything to
commemorate the event? We told of our paper boats in the event – but
that’s a very letting go thing to do what if you’re not ready to let
go haven’t finished grieving? C suggested that we find something that
we can both refer to when we want to think of Pikaia (no we didn’t
share the name).

C then turned to me – What did I want to get out of counselling?
Despite May’s warnings, I hadn’t really prepared a great answer to
this obvious question. So, I bemoaned that I was less emotionally
intelligent, but was hoping to improve that having just found out they
offer some testing/coaching at work and mumbled something about not
feeling able/knowing how to support May. At this point C suggested to
May that she tell me what she wanted – show her that it upset me too,
basically. Yes, it was moving and tears welled for me too. C asked me
why I didn’t and tried to explain how I felt it necessary to be
’strong’ for May (and I think I noticed May giving me stern looks at
this point) – if I was upset too then two emotional people wouldn’t
make a right one and anyway I have difficulty dealing with strong
emotions. This tied in with a discussion about compartmentalising, but
this is a typical bloke thing says C – is this validation I see before
me, I doubt it somehow.

Also May’s family was raised, obviously as you’ll know from previous
posts their reactions and behaviour have left much to be desired,
again C was very sympathetic.

So, that’s my typical blokeish summary of the session – how did I feel
about it? I don’t really know. I was pleased to come away with two
solid ideas to work on (more would have been too much and less not
good value) – being strong does not necessarily equate with not being
upset (and vice versa), and the commemoration object idea. I certainly
can almost visualise the sort of thing I’d like, luckily May agrees
but we haven’t found anything suitable yet.

Session 2:
Having had a really tough day at work – stuck in a stuffy meeting room
for nearly seven hours solid (yes, there were comfort breaks and it
wasn’t a single meeting – don’t worry, I’m not being tortured at work,
although it can feel close sometimes) I didn’t really have much to
say. So this ended up being a May session really – talking about how
to tell and hide these issues from managers and colleagues
respectively at work.

I don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to spill out May’s feelings and
emotions that complicate this issue, so this summary is going to be
short. Suffice to say there may be a way I can help by assisting in
writing a formal email, which was a bonus.

Frustratingly, the issue of anger (how May feels it, but cannot freely
express it, and (because of) my uncomfortableness at dealing/coping
with it) only came up right at the end of the session. So, that might
mean a session for me to explain my familial/upbringing issues and
experiences around strong emotions and anger in the near future.

Overall, I still feel I got quite a lot out of the session. I was able
to listen to May convey her feelings across in a neutral way without
either of us getting distracted or changing the subject too quickly (a
bad habit of mine).

In tandem March 2, 2009

H and I have a plan.

Actually, I have a plan, and H has agreed to it, bwahahahah.

As the subject of counselling, husbands who do or do not go to it, and how is it really, has come up, H and I will both be telling you. He will write a post, and I will write a post. And then I shall publish them both on the blog at about the same time. And then you will know.

We’re hoping to get this done in the next few days, though it’s a bit of a flustered week. H even made unwise noises (and now I have it in writing, even if it’s my writing) about ’seeing how it went’ and ‘it doing for starters’ so now I have leverage for H-updates whenever my blogging mojo deserts me.

She saith among the trumpets, ha ha!

It was where we had left it March 1, 2009

Day two of Medrohoojimaflipsterone, aka provera. Look at me, being all clever and delaying it a few days so I wouldn’t get my period while I spend next weekend with friends. Any bets on how badly that will backfire?

Clomid take 4 is officially over, thank Cripes and his little wingéd minions. Tether, end of, overtaken many weeks ago, I rather think.

*twiddles thumbs*

Meanwhile, H found the ladder to the hayloft, so I am a) sleeping better and b) offering to do laundry and make dinner, so well done him. I confess I burst into furious tears and told him I really resented people thinking it was me who had hidden the damn ladder, and I was trying to be nice and patient, especially with FIL’s surgery, dammit, but look! Miserable FAIL! Coming right atcha! Snivel snivel snarl! H, having, clearly, the oddest ideas about fore-play in the United Kingdom, promptly took me to bed.

I shall not dream of complaining. Even if the unwonted and vigorous exercise did my hip in and made me spend 24 hours limping about clutching at it. SMALL PRICE TO PAY, say I. My hip, by the way, is what I was clutching at. OK? OK. Stop smirking now, it’s undignified.

We are going back to see the Counsellor tomorrow evening. Dear God in Heaven, do you suppose we’ll have to talk about sex?